The operator who tried to save the child who died yesterday in the countryside of Palazzolo Acreide (Syracuse) remained stuck in the intermediate area of the well, between the surface and the water. The firefighters recovered her but were unable to do anything for the little one.
“I didn’t make it, I didn’t make it”. The 54-year-old woman who yesterday tried to save, unfortunately in vain, the child who fell into a well in the countryside of Palazzolo Acreide (Syracuse) is desperate and died at only ten years old. She, an educator who works at the Anffas Doniamo Sorrisi Foundation, lowered herself into that well after the child fell, but she remained stuck. And she explained to the rescuers who arrived shortly after that she could no longer get down.
The woman was rescued shortly after, and taken to the hospital with injuries and in a state of shock, but there was nothing that could be done for the little boy. The firefighters’ divers recovered him lifeless.
Firefighters’ rescue attempts
“We intervened as soon as we received the call for help. When the team arrived on site, the firefighters immediately lowered themselves into the well and managed to recover the woman, who was entrusted to the paramedics. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done for the child. We tried everything we could, but when we recovered him he was already dead”, the words of the fire brigade commander of Syracuse, Ugo Macchiarella, who coordinated the rescue operations.
“The child in the well was asking for help,” says a witness. Parents: “Our heart stopped with yours”
The mayor and the carabinieri were also on site, together with the parents of the child. They are also preparing a psychological assistance service for them: the child who died in Palazzolo Acreide had two brothers, one younger and the other older.
The Syracuse Prosecutor’s Office immediately opened an investigation into what happened manslaughter. The prosecutor who has the file in his hands will have to listen to all the people, about fifteen, who were at the summer camp organized by Anfass, a social cooperative for disabled children. It will be necessary reconstruct the minutes preceding the tragedy and to do this it will be necessary to hear the version of the operators and the owner of the plot of land who would be the same one at the head of the cooperative.
What happened: The well cover collapsed
A first reconstruction of what happened yesterday during what was supposed to be a day of celebration for the children was provided yesterday to Fanpage.it by the mayor Salvo Gallo, who immediately went to the scene. And over time they add up other details.
Apparently, the trip was now coming to an end. The bus that was supposed to bring the children back was already with its engine running, so much so that some chaperone had instructed the children to get on board. The 10-year-old victim of the tragedy would have lingered, he was playing near the well. A volunteer also invited him to come down from the cavity cover, then tragedy struck shortly thereafter, with the child ending up in that cavity about 15 meters deep, half covered in water.
The roofing would have collapsed under his weight. It remains unclear whether the child died from drowning or from an injury sustained during the fall. The coroner appointed by the prosecutor to perform the autopsy will determine this.
The entire community, meanwhile, is dismayed: yesterday the celebrations of Saint Paul the Apostle, patron saint of the Municipality in the Syracuse area, were suspended, and the mayor announced the proclamation of mourning for the city on the day of the funeral. A message of remembrance for the little boy appeared on the Facebook page of the primary school he attended: “A deep and unjustifiable pain that affects us all. We gather in respectful silence and with a feeling of closeness to the family, to his classmates and to all those who have formed bonds of friendship and affection with him”.
Silence for the moment, however, on the foundation’s Facebook page, where there are several posts and photos of the summer camp from the days before the tragedy.
